The most important thing going in race days that you have confidence and you feel good about yourself and you feel prepared. So, you know, if you get to that openers workout and you just had a long drive or you've had a rough work week or, you know, whatever you have been sleeping well and you're just like, hey, you know what, I don't think I'm going to execute this well then it's like, then you don't do that. We just ride easy and go into tomorrow with confidence and, you know, a little bit fresher legs. [Music] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the latest episode of the Matchbox Podcast Firebag Nation Coach Co. I'm your host, Adam Sabin on this week's episode. We're talking about tips for keeping your legs fresh while traveling, whether or not we keep a close eye on CTL and red light therapy. As always, if you like what you hear, please share this with your friends and leave us a five-star review. And if you have any questions for the show, you can drop us an email at
[email protected] with the topic of discussion in the email title or you can enter to ignitioncoachco.com and fill the Matchbox Podcast list in your question form. You can also sign up for the Matchbox Patreon and get priority placement that way. Alright, let's get into it. Alright, first question this week comes in from Tristan from North Carolina and he's got some questions about travel tips. What travel tips do you have? Planning on traveling a couple hours a row note for mountain bike nationals and then about 13 hours to Iowa for core four. There you go, Drew. How do you guys keep your legs fresh with hours of driving to do? I often struggle with flat legs after sitting for that long. Well, he probably doesn't have the luxury of just getting there a couple days before the race. That's what I would try to do. It would be a good follow up. If you have to drive a long distance, it's best if you don't do it the day before the race or even worse. If you've got somebody who does say a Friday night crit, if you were to drive all day Friday and then do the crit, that would be the worst case scenario. I've done this before. Terrible. Right, I mean, you can manage, but you don't feel prime for sure. Yeah, so if you I mean, if you have a Saturday race, I get that a lot of people don't have this luxury, but I mean, I'm properly trying to finish my long drive by Wednesday at the latest, you know. I think regardless of how soon or how close to your event you travel, I would highly recommend not doing it all up on time. I can understand the argument like, oh, but, you know, I'd rather just knock it out. And then if you if I can go two days before and then the day before, like, I have that whole day to recuperate, but I'm telling you 13 hours is very hard on the body. And if you can break it up and do six hours one day and seven hours the other day or in any way so that you can stop and ride or stop and stretch out and like stick to your routine as closely as possible, you're going to feel so much better. But also I think a lot of people they get in this mindset of, oh, I got a 10 hour drive to do. I'm just going to like knock it out, you know, they try to do as few stops as possible. Like they pack lunch with them so that they don't have to stop to get lunch and all of that. And I mean, all of that is well good. It's probably better to pack lunch than get some bad fast food on the road. But I, I don't like if you have a 10 hour drive, I don't mind making it 12 hours total. If that means I'm stopping frequently and walking around and stretching my legs. Like I would rather spend another two hours to get there and have, you know, a couple 10 to 15 minute breaks thrown in where I'm just walking around. Then just sit for 10 hours straight. So are you guys the fans would say? Yeah, I know where to be. No time crunch. I'll just take my time. Are you when I want? Are you guys like mid, mid drive ride people? Like will you stop and ride for an hour or two? Yeah, actually I've done that. Especially, especially so a lot of times you just have a recovery ride to do on Thursday. And then maybe you have openers on Friday and let's say you're trying to knock out your drive on Thursday or doing some sort of actual ride mid drive always sucks. But if it's just an hour recovery, putting that in the middle of your drive is kind of a good way to break it up. Sure. That's how I would say drive six hours and then ride and break it up. You could do that too. Yeah, yeah. And I would almost rather do that. What Caitlin saying is like when I get to where I'm going, then ride. But like to get your all your junk out and to change and you're probably changing in the parking lot and then you gotta get back in your car. I just I have only done that like once ever and I didn't even say I didn't think it was worth it. I'm the guy that Dylan described the first time, which is just like knock it out. Yeah, I do I do wonder or I used to be you know, I used to be way more adamant about doing an easy spin when I got to wherever I was going. Like I remember in college, we would often have to leave on Friday and we would just drive all day and there were a few times where we'd get to our hotel like late Friday night, like it's dark out. Luckily, we had probably already dinner so like we're just at the hotel and I remember like setting up my bike on rollers and spinning for 30 minutes in a hotel room because I thought I was just convinced that doing a spin after a long drive was super important the day before race. So I would do that. And I don't know if it was I don't know if it was worth it because of how late it was or it wasn't like super late is probably time like seven or eight at night, but I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think that something I think just moving your body around like even if it's just a walk or a slight jog, something like that, I think it's good. I bet it helps with sleep. I mean, I'm on her if it helps you sleep better too because like after sitting in the car, then you move a bit and then you go to sleep. I wonder if that would improve sleep the night before the race as well. Possibly. What do you guys think about wearing like compression socks or compression leggings? Yeah, that's the next thing I was going to say. I mean, a lot of times is so you know sometimes feel have long plane rides too and you definitely suggest that for plane. But you know, I don't know if you just take a look at your ankles after you've been on a plane for a long time or been in a car for a long time, like there's a lot of swelling going on. And that's that's part of the reason why your legs feel like crap. So if you can minimize that. Sure. Can you elevate your legs while you drive? Well, it's not recommended for safety. Throw that thing on cruise control and pop the legs on the dash. I mean, if you're if you're carpooling, actually, I shouldn't recommend this because they don't recommend that you put your feet on the dash because if you crash, you could really mess up your legs. Even when you're not. Well, think about if you if you get on it head on collision, if you're feeder in the normal position, I mean, it's bad, but it's not the worst. But if your feet are up, like that's how you snap your femur's back. Yeah, I know someone that that happened to they got in a car accident and her leg went through the windshield and then she like her whole leg was torn up. Yeah. Right. So next topic. Do do that at your own risk. Like we didn't endorse that is what I've said. Yeah, but I mean, that's why you were compression socks or compression leggings just to try and improve circulation. If you're lower extremities. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think kind of going back to either Kalen and Dylan, like just stop in every two hours, even just to get out and walk for two minutes. Like it doesn't take that much to just get more of like an upright position and moving around because you had just being in that kind of like bent 90 90 position is like really, really tough on circulation. Yeah, while your gas is filling up, you just grab the bands and go to work on your actuation. Yeah, maybe instead of instead of getting gas when your tank is empty, get gas every time when your tanks at half full. You're going to go through the same amount of gas, but you're going to get a little more frequent stops, but that's probably what you need anyways. Yeah. What do you guys think? So let's talk about. He doesn't bring this up in his question, but there's something that I often think about when I'm prescribing my workouts for athletes and I know they're going to be traveling. What kind of workouts would you do before long travel like this and what kind of workouts would you avoid before long travel like this in order to try and help prevent flat legs like same day. Same day or maybe day before. So I'll start. So I typically try to prevent my athletes doing intervals either the night before or the morning of travel. Yeah, just because I don't want them to be sitting for six to 10 hours in a stable, you know, stationary position after they've just like smoked their legs at the hard workout. Yeah, hopefully they wouldn't have a workout where they're smoking their legs right before they got a travel for race. I think that doing an opener workout where you're doing, you know, a couple via two max intervals, but not completely smoking yourself. I I would probably still prescribe that if they were driving the next day. Yeah, like some short, just short little blocks of intensity, but not not super high TSS or anything like that. No kind of like race simulation or big. Yeah, I just think yeah, you're that's probably right. I think a bigger volume day is fine, but yeah, I'm with you and not an intensity session. And then the morning of just a spin if they can. Yeah, yeah, I think the morning of I wouldn't have anything. Most of the time if they're traveling, I'll even make the day optional because like.
Yeah, maybe they are behind on packing and if riding is just going to head to the stress then or if traffic, I just don't want them to feel the pressure of like, I have to ride today. You know, kind of like I did in college, I guess. I want it to be more like, if you can do it great, if not, don't stress about it. Like the main thing is like, you got to get to where you're going. And then once you're there, maybe SS and figure out if you can ride or maybe do a spin the next day or whatever. Yeah, for sure. I was going to say most likely the following day when they get to where they're going, it's like going to be packet pickup and they're going to want a pre-ride, but just know that you're ready. It's just not going to feel good. And that's okay. Yeah, and don't let like just because your legs feel kind of bad on that day. Like let's say travel Thursday, Fridays packet pickup and you do a shakeout ride, it's okay if your legs don't feel great that day. That's kind of the point of that ride. It's just shake out your legs so that they feel good on Saturday. So don't let that be like a mental crux of like, oh man, I feel like garbage. You're probably going to feel better because you did that spin and then hopefully Saturday you'll feel fine. Yeah, I think that's really good advice because it's so easy to psych yourself out on that day before workout where it's like that workout literally does not matter. Like I don't care how you feel. That's the whole point. Like you said, that's the whole point of doing that workout. It's how you feel on Saturday. Yeah, when you were coaching me Adam and you put openers in there, you made a note that said, what did you say? Like openers is a privilege for like the well-rested or something. So if you just need to ride endurance, that's fine. And I've taken that approach with a lot of my athletes. Like we're just going to ride endurance the day before, but your warm-up should be a priority race day. Yeah. Yeah, because like the last thing I want is an athlete that's like had a stressful week, didn't get proper recovery, feels like tired the day before the race and then go put them through like a proper opener workout. And then they end up feeling like Drew just said where they're down in the dumps because they just like failed their openers workout, which is not even supposed to be that challenging, but for whatever reason they just couldn't get through it. And now they just feel terrible going into race day. Like I don't want that. The most important thing going in race day is that you have confidence and you feel good about yourself and you feel prepared. So if you get to that openers workout and you've just had a long drive or you've had a rough work week or whatever you haven't sleep and well. And you're just like, hey, you know what, I don't think I'm going to execute this well. Then you don't do that. We just ride easy and go into tomorrow with confidence and a little bit fresher legs. I was thinking of this. If you're like me and hate spending money on a hotel just to stop and sleep somewhere, there's this website called Warm Showers. And it was originally designed for people who were biking across the country and just wanted to camp and people's backyards. And so people have gone on and like they volunteer their yards for people to camp in. And I've used it once. And I've I've really like brought a tent and was going to camp in these people's backyard. And I, you know, you message them through the website or whatever. And I got there and they it was like they were just like talking to me and getting to know me and then they went into their house. It was an older couple. And then they came back out and they were like, you seem pretty cool. You can sleep in our guest room if you want. And I would like like total strangers. I just needed a place to stay on the way to a race. And I stayed in these people's guest room and woke up the next morning and hop back in my car and kept going. And so if you want to you like utilize that website, that's like another like easy and like campgrounds are super cheap. Like if you're okay with camping, I don't like if it's just you and you want to pop up a tent throwing air mattress in there like, I don't know, that's easy and cheap. If you don't want to fork out the money for a hotel, but yeah, warm showers, I don't even think it's warm showers.com. I think it's like dot net or something like, you know, like it's an old clunky website. Also, if he's going from North Carolina to Core 4, man, you got to come right through here. You could just crash at my place. Come on over, Tristan. I got a good basement. I was going to say, are you offering up your backyard? I think I'm literally right in the middle of his drive probably. He's probably going to have to drive six or seven hours. He'll either go through Cincinnati or through Louisville. But either way, it's only like, it probably would only add like 20 minutes to come to Louisville instead of sincere or something. There you go. Free place to stay. If you, I don't know, if you listen to the bonk bros, you probably already got my address and the code to my front door. So come on in. Cool. Anything else for Tristan? I don't know. I mean, I kind of, I was kind of like reading his question. I think he was hoping for us to give him some magical advice, but I don't think there's any magical advice to give here. You know what I mean? Like, I think everything we said was pretty standard. Yeah. Unfortunately, like we're all, we're all, we're all in the beings and we all have very similar physiologies. So like we're all going to respond pretty similarly to these kind of environments where you're just sitting still in the car for 13 hours. Like that's, like, it's like that's actually rough. It seems like all that should be easy because you're not moving, but that's actually not what your body wants. Tristan, just buy a private jet. Dude, I've went to a race once or a few times in a private jet and it is the life. Like, I mean, 10 hour drive turns into a one hour flight. You're just like, that was awesome. Yeah. I would say like another thing is Dylan kind of hinted at it with the junk food, but yeah, I would, I would still stay on top of hydration and nutrition, all that, even while you're driving, you know, pack some healthy snacks, all that kind of stuff. Hydration. Yeah. Don't just like down monster energy drinks when you're driving. Unless that's what you're used to. I guess. You know. All right. Let's move on to Rally's question here. Rally's got a question on CTL. Rally says, how much do you all focus on CTL as you coach your athletes that are training eight to 10 hours a week? Trying to keep DJ happy with a short question. Thanks for all the training information. Love the show. We keep you. So me happy. Yeah. You've got this reputation for liking the shorter questions. So, okay. All the questions this week are short. Like real short. So, so yeah, the gist of it is how much are you guys focusing on CTL for your athletes that are training an average, you know, I mean, maybe even a little bit above average, you know, eight to 10 hours a week. That's that's pretty solid. I guess to like set the what do you call it? Set the mood. Set the the mood set the mood set the no, no, set the standard out of whatever. Sure. So to lay the foundation, CTL is chronic training load or other, other lead otherwise known as fitness on the training peaks app on the chart. And so a lot of people think of lap as their think of that number as their literally their fitness number. Yeah. I know they ever added that in to where sometimes it's shown as fitness. Yeah. And then but it's actually CTL is actually chronic training load. Yeah, I think they changed it just because a lot of people didn't really know what those acronyms were. You know, so like chronic training load is probably too long of a yes thing to put in there. They tried to they just tried to simplify it so that it's like, oh, this number correlates to your fitness. This number correlates to your form. This correlates. But people think it equates. Exactly. That's the problem. They jump they jump too far. They take it too far. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I personally, I know we just had that special training peaks show, but that's probably one of my biggest pet peeps with the way that training peaks. Yeah, training peaks in general is I don't like that. That is called fitness. I was waiting for either you or Dylan to just roast the guy on the performance management chart. Like what the heck are you guys thinking? Just delete. You know, well, why didn't you roast him? Because I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The chart looks good. It makes you feel pretty good about yourself. Yeah. When the chart doesn't look good, you're like, I'm a failure. Yeah. I used to say, I look at him, but take him with a green assault. If we're being asked, I don't even look at it anymore. There's such better ways to track an athlete's progress than that. And the way the algorithm waits certain rides. I'm sure we've talked about it before if an athlete is in a period of heavy racing, like, and they're doing shorter races or crits or whatever. Like it's going to look like their CTL is staying the same or dropping when actually they're getting more race fit. Getting faster. Yeah. So I think that here's a great example. The best way to raise your CTL as quickly as possible is to do a ton of tempo. Just ride tempo as long as you can. And that's probably the easiest way to raise your CTL as fast as possible, just basically ride between the two lactate turn points. And that's literally the exact opposite of what science tells you is the optimal way to train. So yeah. I mean, and mom. And I like, I'll often talk about this with athletes that that number is not the end all be all you could have the same athlete. And I love to do this with my athletes that I've trained for multiple years. And we can look back at the same time point, you know, from last year and see that your CTL may actually be relatively lower this year than it was to last year. Let's say it's, you know, instead of 90, it's 85. But we're seeing better numbers. We're seeing you're actually
writing faster and that's the goal of training right the goal of training is not to just raise some theoretical number It's like actually get to improve performance and get you from a to b faster in the at the end so just because of CTL is one of them and you could have the same athlete that's a 90 CTL one year in a 90 CTL another part in the season And they are like completely different they have like completely different Like power profiles because it depends on what they're optimizing for so To me like I'm fine with that number still being tracked and like I'd rather still just call it CTL than fitness But I don't I don't want that number to like to To get in the way of an athlete thinking where they're like you know their understanding of where they're at performance wise I'd rather if anything I'd rather just like hide that from athletes at times and just like have it only for my own like visibility Yeah, yeah, it's something where like I'll look at it But I'll look at it after I've built out my training You know like I've already put in what I know the best workouts and training is and and I'll complete that training And then and then it'll be like something that I'll just go in and look at to be like sure Oh like I wonder how I wonder what it looks like over the last three months like yeah, it's going up is it going down But I don't I don't like build out. I don't I don't use it like alongside like while I'm building out an athlete's Training like I just put in the training and then let the chart do whatever it does But I'm not using it in any capacity to like help me plan somebody's training Yeah, so if anything, you know if you know that you're training eight to ten hours a week You can calculate what like a theoretical CTL like optimal CTL number would be for a certain phase of training and The base phase is probably like the most relevant use for this. So it's like I'm gonna keep training until my CTL hits this number Because this is theoretically like what it you know I could achieve and then once I hit that point now I know I'm ready to move into Build phase something like that like I could see that being kind of relevant It's it gets tricky though because it's a very slippery slope and it's very easy to just want to see that number keep increasing And never actually make that transition into your proper build and specialty phases because you know like Caitlin said your CTL Is gonna have to drop to do that and that's that's very psychologically It's like it's Psychologically inverse of what what you think should happen like you if you think of it as fitness You think that that number needs to keep increasing until race day, and that's not actually true The one metric that I use the most of all of the performance management chart is the TSP number training course balance and I actually will Like if I've got if I've got an athlete doing a really hard workout on a certain day I will glance at that to make sure it's not like way low like if they're at a negative 30 and I'm trying to have them do a Pretty hard workout that day. I'm like Maybe I should re-evaluate the few days leading up to that or the week leading up to that because the The TSB is like taking into account your your CTL score But also the last seven days of your fatigue. It's just like the combination of those two things Yep, and so if you've done a lot of training in the last seven days You're gonna be kind of far in the you're gonna be like pretty deep in the hole like you're gonna be fatigue so that's like that's what I'll use and And even sometimes if I'm looking at it and I'm like, I mean, I don't even use that like I don't I don't let that be like Always the case, you know, but I'll use it as like what kind of cadence that like with a grain of salt like I'll look at it And be like oh, maybe I should a light millote a little bit before this really hard workout so that they can hit the Sure, yeah I actually I agree that's probably the one that I use the most to and and I use it a lot of times Historic for like looking at historical data Yeah, so if an athlete tells me or if I see you know if I see something trending in their comments or they're you know Training that's like hey, this athlete is firing on all cylinders right now like we're nailing workouts athlete feels great Sing PRs. I'll kind of glance at what that that TSP number is during that that time period when they're really riding well And then try and mimic something similar come race day and sometimes that's like a negative 20 some athletes like do really well with caring some fatigue Yeah, some athletes need it to be positive But just know like that's a range to like if it's negative 17 versus negative 25 like that's negligible Yeah, if it's like negative 25 versus positive 30 that's like to totally different states of being yeah, so It is arranged, but you you like you can kind of fine tune the training and sometimes that means like Instead of an athlete doing three hours. I'm gonna have them do two hours because I wanted to be just a little bit fresher Or the opposite you know I want him to get like just a little bit more fatigue in their legs before race day Yeah, looking at that not that looking at the TSP going into unbound was probably like what I was the most nervous about because it was so high Because I because I tapered for like Almost two weeks before unbound and before unbound I was doing so much volume that like the CTL got pushed super high So then inevitably after taking like a week of recovery the TSP was like positive 20 something and I'm like Oh my gosh am I like is that gonna be is that too? I'm gonna have too much TSP going in the so the but then I was like, you know what like that's just a number I'm not gonna let that number like get into my seat and like you're a coach and I had a great like I see an athlete and like that stuff can still Yeah, I was thinking I was like maybe I should put in like one more really long ride so that that drops some I don't want it to be too high on race day, but I didn't do that because I'm like I think I asked ill in that week I'm like what should I do like And he reassured me that I was on the right track Dylan's like my if I if I'm doubting my own coaching I called Dylan and yeah, give me a thumbs up. Yeah Jury, I am curious what like what was your peak CTL for that like Unbound block. Yeah, it was absurd Like 150 there's almost 150. I was like I think it got up to like I hit five or 148 or something I hit 150 on the last day. Okay of the block and now it's probably like 25 60 or so. I don't know. Let me hold on. You probably this is what's gonna be bad is you're gonna say what it is now And it's gonna still be higher than a lot of people. Okay, well I'll just go say I'll pull up mine because I got Probably higher than atoms. Yeah, I hit 150 on the last day and it is now 57 dude, that's exactly what mine is today 57 I'm so fit I'm as fit as Dylan. But I mean that that number is when you're doing massive volume blocks like me and Dylan were then obviously that number is gonna that's what drives that number up Yeah, like what Dylan was saying for sure. Yeah, and like something to keep in mind too is CTL is tracking basically your your average daily TSS for the last six weeks Yeah, so if you if you take a normal training like a training cycle though That's four weeks, which includes a week of rest. So that's what can be kind of difficult too is like it's very easy to get on that slippery slope of like I need to keep increasing CTL keep increasing CTL and never take that rest week because you want to see that number hit a certain threshold Yeah, but that's why you can't just raise your CTL in six weeks like you have to do it in stages Anything else on CTL or any of these other metrics. I never I never really look at the fatigue one the other one I never look at that one. Well, I the fatigue one can be good to look at if you're like in an unbound block I will sometimes look at the fatigue one. So I mean, I'm looking at the TSP which is like I'm I don't know to me is the same thing I just I think with all these metrics you you should take note of For example if you feel amazing and you're smashing workouts and you're like wow I am like really Killin it and training right now take a look at what your metrics are take a look at what your CTL is take a look at what your TSP is take a look at your fatigue and Just just you can either take a mental note of it or you could actually physically write it down and be like When I was around this general area that's how I felt and if you feel terrible Maybe also take a mental note of what those metrics are You know, I mean just just as an example. I know that usually if my If my fatigue levels drop below negative 50-ish I'm usually in trouble like I'm I'm on the edge of overtraining not always but generally that's what I found Yeah, but you're looking at TSP because TSP sorry. Yeah, yeah T.S. T is always like a big Positive number. Yeah, yeah fatigue. I think is your seven-day average Right, so so I mean the the TSP is just a kind of an equation of like relating CTL TSP or ATL CTL ATL Yeah And then kind of like the equating of like what that it you know comes out to be like your form. That's what they call a form but You like your TSP your ATL or your your fatigue Will be really high if you've had like a big training week. Yeah, yeah, a cute training. Yeah, so short-term So instead of CTL. It's ATL switch. Yeah, it's just a seven seven-day I mean again, I would I would take mental notes of like where you were at at various times and how you felt Yeah, I mean the fatigue the fatigue number is very relevant because Your form can you can all these numbers you can create you can have the same number in numerous different ways
So like you could have a really high form, but still have a really high fatigue level If you'd like just come off of a rest week or you could have a really low form in a really low fatigue level If you came off like a really big block like drew it So like you meant to take some time in order for those to balance out So like they are all relevant. You don't look at way more than all three of these And it's gonna be like weekly volume weekly volume and there's no algorithm behind it It's literally just you add up how many hours you ride each day and I look at that for myself and for my athletes Like way more than I look at any of these three things I mean, I'm looking at weekly volume every week on all my athletes to make sure to make sure it's progressing to make sure I'm not overtraining them to make sure they're hitting the goal weekly volumes like if I prescribed 10 hours And they only hit five like we're gonna have to talk about that Yeah, and I'm looking at that way more than I am these days Yeah, I agree and I I was listening to another podcast I used it earlier this week or last week. I think I sent it to you guys But they were talking about how athletes oftentimes get really nervous and Like bogged down with plateaus like you the thought of the plateau or hitting a plateau But oftentimes to like hit your peak performance you have to come to some plateau And you need to ride that plateau for a little while and then eventually like you start to like fine tune things and that's what happens with With athletes that are locked into certain weekly volumes, right? Like at some point if you can only train eight hours a week You're going to plateau in terms of what these numbers are that doesn't mean you have to plateau in terms of performance There are still things that you can do to tweak your Performance, but you have to be accepting of the fact that like you're gonna hit a CTL plateau Like you're just not gonna be able to break through that ceiling unless you try and do something like Dylan was talking about where you just ride Tempo or sweet spot five days a week and like sure you can break the algorithm But that's not gonna get you faster like you're not gonna be improving performance at the end of the day All right cool anything else with this or should we hit this last one? Yeah last one. All right Gary from the UK coming at you any thoughts on red light therapy and grounding to aid in recovery Thanks love the podcast now they're short and sweet I have a red light there so y'all are gonna have to inform me on grounding. Yeah, actually this guy in electrician So I was my in-laws New Caitlin was gonna know about this I just knew it. Is this the same thing as like our thing that they call it? Essentially yeah, yeah, it's kind of like syncing your bodies Energy with the earth yeah, yeah, there are Absolutely what they're having an electricity is yes, there are bedsheets that are Have wiring. I guess it's copper wiring throughout and Yes, and you plug you grant you plug the sheets into the grounding portion. Yes, we have them and I She's there is to admit this Yeah, because I was so against it might in those so or by it and then you know I was like sure they got it for us for Christmas and Yes, it changes everything. Yeah And okay, so we already turn off our our Wi-Fi at night. We have our Wi-Fi on a timer And I will say just just give it a try if you haven't I feel like you really do sleep. Yeah, you sleep better And then these grounding sheets are essentially just like you turn off your phones too so that your phones don't have Like connection to kind of like him whatever sounds like no. Yeah, just for like Now family try to call in the night. I'm just okay. Yeah, why don't you get a landline That sounds as crazy as red light there You talking about a landline We're not home enough for that Fair but yeah, I think So it's like taking your shoes off and walking barefoot on the earth like okay. Yeah, that's all it is Kind of that deal of it. Yeah Or you can just sleep on the ground People swear that with these grounding sheets like One they sleep better too like if they suffer from like some joint discomfort You know if they feel better after or so So so okay, so give us your experience then it would you recommend it as a form of improving recovery? I don't know if I would go as far as improving recovery, but improving sleep quality Which if you can improve sleep quality that's like the number one way to improve recovery. Oh, yeah We're here in Crested but for this summer and both of us actually said a couple nights ago We were like oh, we should have brought the sheets It's too bad you can't get them shipped there because post office doesn't deliver I'm gonna say I'm gonna say I'm highly highly skeptical But you know what I've been I've been highly skeptical about things in the past and been wrong about them. So I'm just Sorry One other thing to note just if you've had any experience camping and like You would say that camping on paper would be terrible for your sleep like your basic especially if like you don't have a great sleeping pad You're just laying on the ground, but like if you actually do it Like I would I mean I'm speaking for myself, but like the quality of the way that I felt every morning waking up After like I did this block before a brick epic where I camped for two weeks I mean every it was Yeah, so so for the for amazing before we go to red light therapy, Xeno Delano's gonna bring that up, but With the grounding do you have to sleep on the ground or is having some kind of buffer like a sleep? Pad good enough to like still achieve the Like grounding effects. I think this this sleeping pad is fine Okay, so I'm just saying like that rocks That's good for a pillow the grounding sheets are yeah, I know I know the grounding sheets are Trying to simulate that, but if you were trying to get the natural effects from the ground Okay, I wonder if they've done some research up in Michigan in the middle of winter To to see like productivity and mood and They made people go for a walk in the middle of the day in the summer when it's nice and they came back and they were happier And they were more productive, but then they also made them do it in the middle of winter which winters in Michigan's suck and so They're not it's not an enjoyable walk and they still come back and they're in a better mood and they're more productive and So basically the whole study is like when your outdoors outdoors has a positive effect on your overall Sure productivity So I wonder if just being out well that's okay. So transitioning to red light therapy So I just want to I just want to throw this in here. I never ever sleep better when I'm camping ever Yeah, I'm with you. I think that's the I think I love the idea of camping and the the number one reason we don't camp is because I hate Sleeping when it's hot and I and I haven't figured out what you got to go camp somewhere that's not hot I know but like every time I've tried to camp it's I it's just inevitably I'm in the middle of night and I'm like I can't sleep. I'm hot. I'm it's muggy and I'm just ticked off and then we end up leaving early because Everybody wakes up and they're tired the next day. Yeah, I mean it doesn't really matter if it's hot if it's cold If it's the perfect temperature. I have never had like a good night sleep camping ever in my life So I don't agree with Caitlin on that but everyone's the last time you can I think you yeah, but you haven't camped since you were in like high school and you probably just did it wrong I've done plenty of camping in my life I don't see it. I think for me it was like the perfect combination of everything so there was a no service And then the temperature was really was really good. It probably dropped to like high forties in the night And with the sleeping that I had it was just like perfect temperature and then you're going to sleep and waking up with the sun So that's like you're circadian rhythm as soon as you get out You're hit with the sunlight I was right next to the river. I was doing cold plunge in the morning like this Yeah, you've done all the Yeah, one with one with nature Forget this luxury CV camp dude. We should just skip the house and go sleep by the river This wasn't crested to where the camp is really good Friedus first camping you can stay up to 14 days. It's great. I I don't know. I want to go I haven't been camping in a really long time and I want to and I mentioned it to CJ a few days ago I was like because we're doing that Michigan coast to coast racing There's literally like nowhere to stay and I was like CJ we could just camp like We'll buy a big tent that would fit with us and the two kids and just camp and she was like No, just immediately shot it down It's like all right bummer All right, well so my initial impressions on grounding is that it's hippie BS But I've been wrong. I have been wrong before so like and I've not Not done research on it, but I wasn't gonna say like that if you think about what we are at the molecular level We are positive and negative energy. You sound such like a hippie right now. I'm All right, well anyway, we need to do more research on the on the grounding thing, but I I actually I I also thought that you know, this is actually a perfect example I thought the red light therapy was BS and I haven't tried red light therapy yet, but
people reached out to me after I broke my leg and they were like, dude, you got to try red light therapy. It's going to make your leg heel faster. And I was like, shining red lights on my leg is going to make the bone heel faster. Like that doesn't-- - You know why? Because red light is a specific energy for me. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I know, I know. So I did research on it. I did research on it. And I was like, dang, there's freaking studies that say that shining red lights on your broken bone will make a heel faster. - Did you want to try it? - I didn't, you tried it. - Well, I ordered one. - It just had a show up. - Yeah. - All right. - There we go. - Wow, you're a hippie, Dylan. (laughing) - The day. - That's awesome. - Yeah, I think one of my buddies on Texas is that I'm going to be honest. I only did the research on healing broken bones. I didn't actually look into it at all for improving recovery. It wouldn't surprise me if it does improve recovery. - And when's the Dylan Johnson YouTube video on red light there? - I know, I think I've got to make-- I mean, I haven't done nearly enough research to even talk about it confidently at this point. But I don't know, I feel like that's got to be in the queue. - Coming up. - Both of these, both of them make claims to improve mood enhancement, sleep optimization, improve cognitive function, and reduce inflammation. So, and reduce stress and improve, I already said sleep quality. So I mean, and that's sometimes, so like, when you train, you're stressing your body and there's gonna be inflammation that occurs afterwards. Like, that's your body's response to hard work. But like, going and taking a bunch of like, over the counter NSAIDs to like anti-inflammatories is not what you wanna do. Like, that's not gonna improve recovery. That's like not the type of anti-inflammation that you want. But more and something more natural like this, or like you've even talked Dylan about like, anti-accidents and like getting natural sources of anti-accidents. Like, that's gonna be like, reducing inflammation is going to help improve recovery. It's just how you go about reducing inflammation. - So here's the tricky thing about reducing inflammation. Your body actually needs inflammation to adapt to the stress. - Right. - So, you know, for example, when you take NSAIDs, it's reducing the inflammation and you will recover faster. But the problem is that you won't make the same level of adaptations to the exercise that you've just done. And they've shown with like ice baths after weight lifting. They have shown that with ice baths after weight lifting too. If you do a heavy lifting session and then jump straight into an ice bath, you will recover faster, but you will not make as many strength gains as if you hadn't done that. So, you know, you kind of got to be careful with these things. Like if something's reducing inflammation, you know, for example, if a red light therapy is reducing inflammation, could it improve recovery? Maybe could it hinder adaptation? Maybe I don't know. Not a, not sometimes things improve recovery without hindering adaptation and sometimes they don't. So it's just something to keep in mind. - Sure. - I have a question about red light. Inevitably when something like this comes out, there's all these brands that are like, we have the best red light. Use this red light. This is the right red light and the other ones are all wrong. And is that, is there a special device or can I literally just go by a red light bulb and? - Well, so there's different wavelengths. So red light is on the visible light spectrum, but within red light there's different wavelengths. And I don't know what the best wavelength is off the top of my head, but I think that there is a preferred wavelength of red light that is optimal. Hit us, Caitlin. Do you know what? - I don't know what that is now. - I don't care what we know. - Sorry. Drop the ball. I mean, I'm wary of any company saying that they have a, like, their superior, their whatever they make is superior to everyone else. - It's just white. - It's just white. - Don't buy the cheapest one off Amazon is my guess. - So like the medium one off Amazon? - I usually do always buy it. - I usually do always buy the cheapest one off Amazon. - Can I DIY it? - So this is actually really interesting. I'm kind of flipping through some different studies here. But one talks about compared to the placebo effect, or compared to the placebo therapy, red light therapy improve the speed of muscular VO2 adaptation, decreased oxygen deficiency, and increased VO2 from the slow component phase. - Increased VO2. - Sign me. - Sign me. - And it says it does not reduce muscular adaptation instead it enhances muscular recovery and potentially even improves muscular growth. And then another study talks about the improvements to grip strength in increased maximum repetitions by up to 52%. - Are you able to in those studies see what the protocol was so that I can see which, what kind of, do I sign? - I mean, I'm just trying to kind of read some of the summaries here so that I can get some understanding. But let's see, if I can pull it quick. Why are you gonna go try it? - Buh-huh. - Next time maybe I'll reach out and be like, "Hey, I have a YouTube video. Will you send me this for free?" - Send you what? - I read like thing in a jig. - I think these are not from companies. I'm on like the NIH website. I don't know, but there's companies that make red light devices or whatever. - Bro, you know there's this thing called your own damn money that you can take out of your bank account and pay for something with. - Well, I would do that if I could get it for free, dude. That's like, why would he sleep in a hotel when he could sleep on someone's lawn? - Dude, my whole life I've just been penny pension. - I'm not gonna change now. - All right, cool. Well, sounds like maybe we've got some more research to do on these topics. - Well, wrap it. - Yeah. Oh yeah, I should have clicked stuff a while ago. All right, folks, thanks for tuning in for the latest episode of the Matchbox Podcast. Like I said at the beginning, you can send any questions or topic suggestions to
[email protected] or you can head over to the ignition coachco website and fill out the Matchbox Podcast listener question form that's posted there. Links to each of our social media pages can be found in the show notes. Tune in next week for another endurance training related discussion and learn more about how you can find that extra match for your next big event. Catch y'all soon. Let's go. (upbeat music)
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